Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office

Glad to see it. Such a well done movie. Sure, there wasn't a lot of plot. That's the critics issue with it. But for us gamers, I thought it was excellent

This is a very good movie. Glad to see it do so well.

Congratulations!
I have a plan to watch again Super Mario movie for the 4th time today and will the last time I watch the same movie in a row.
I will watch another movie again Little Mermaid live action on 26 May 2023.

@FishyS
How was your experience watching Super Mario movie at your place?

Saw it not long after it opened in theatres. Very enjoyable film.

While I don’t think it deserves to be the highest-grossing animated movie, I do think it deserves it more than Frozen 2, and most of Disney’s other recent animated movies, so go Mario

EDIT: Just realized it was the best opening weekend, not highest-grossing… still, of the 15 movies ahead of it, 11 are worse than this one in my opinion

I have chortles

As I've said before, it's a HUGE reversal of fortune for Nintendo-based movies. After the failure of the 1993 Mario movie, Nintendo was very hesitant to make any more movies based on their games (even ones based on Zelda and Metroid), fearing another Mario movie debacle. Sometimes, they'd even back out at the last minute, even when they showed interest in a project.

But this new Mario movie's wildfire success has made them change their tune, and now more Nintendo movies are on the way. I am personally hoping for Zelda and Metroid, along with Star Fox and Super Smash Bros. (which could be like their version of Marvel's The Avengers). I even have an idea for a Punch-Out!! movie! And in that, Sylvester Stallone would cameo as Rocky Balboa, being the fight commentator in the match between Little Mac and Mr. Dream (played by Mike Tyson, as a nod to the original version of the NES game).

Part of cinema history!

YEAHHHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIII!!!
The Mario movie was amazing so it deserves it!.

Congrats to everyone involved!

@AstroTheGamosian Nintendo was actually directly involved in the production of an animated Animal Crossing movie based on Wild World for the DS. It's quite good if you like the slice-of-life genre but unfortunately it never came out outside of Japan.

By the end of its box office run, the Super Mario movie will likely make more money than both Sonic movies + the Uncharted movie combined.

So anyone know Nintendo's take of the $1 billion? I know Mario is their guy but Illumination made the movie and I actually don't know what Universal has to do with it, distribution maybe.

Also wondering if Nintendo paid to get it made or got paid for the Mario license? If Nintendo got paid for Mario and didn't spend any money on production that it's basically all profit for them, minus whatever they've spent on marketing.

Doesn't surprise me as I saw this film twice!

I haven't done this with a film in ages!!!!!

Not a surprise at all but pretty neat. Really excited to see what’s next

Honestly my favorite movie ever. I love every essence of it. The score, the effects, the references. It puts a joy in my heart to see it succeed because it deserves it!

Topping the box office with the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Topping the pre-order charts with Tears of the Kingdom.

Topping hardware charts with a console that seems poised to challenge the Nintendo DS and PS2 for the throne of best-selling console of all time.

It's good to be Nintendo at the moment.

Inb4 SonofDracula and CharlieGirl inevitably insult this movie for the umpteenth time.

Well deserved. Amazing movie! They have done everything right in this one.

@Ralizah It's a shame we don't get Theme Park numbers.

It's been popular with the kids. Going to keep my fingers crossed for the sequel, Illumination seem to do fairly well with these.

Good on Nintendo! The Mario movie is the first video game turned movie that understands its audience. Sonic the Hedgehog had to shove boring human characters in it while all we wanted was Sonic. Detective Pikachu was atrocious and deviated way too much from the source material. The Ratchet and Clank movie had to add a bunch of new characters no one cared about. But Mario is just pure fanservice and it's perfect. Way to go, Nintendo.

@Eggman94 Aww, looks like he's banned. Bummer, I was looking forward to his reaction to the inevitable "5 million physical Pokémon SV sold in Japan" article later this week.

@Ursaking I'd say the 2006 animated Animal Crossing movie was the first, but sadly it was only shown in Japan.

I wonder just how many gold coins this would be in a Super Mario game??

So the movie is making more money than the games? 😅

Nice that its doing well, definitely going to get a DVD of this. Great movie and a nice representating the main series Mario from Arcade to Switch, you can feel just how much care went into the movie while watching it.

@GogGogGogGog Not quite. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will have made over $3billion and unlike this movie Universal/Illumination won't take a cut lol.

But the biggest benefit for Nintendo from Mario movies will likely be increased interest in Mario games and potentially more new fans from the children watching.

It was a fun movie that nailed the landing. It would have been nice to have things slow down a tad during some of the conversational moments like When Mario and DK are trapped in the monster but otherwise good fun.

Anyone knows how long the movie is suposed to stay on theaters? Looking up, I've found out that Frozen 2 was on show for 10 weeks straight, and comparing the movies on a weekly base, Mario made more money on almost all of them. I believe that they just need to keep It on the run long enough to make it the highest grossing animated movie of all time! It would be an amazing feat

@Ursaking Ratchet & Clank's issue was more about how it was a retelling of the first game that needlessly changed many things including the personalities, dynamic and character development of the titular characters.

@FirstEmperor Actually, I have seen that movie! I totally forgot about it! In fact, there does exist an English fandub that's actually done pretty well! That's how I watched it. You can probably find it on YouTube, which is where I saw it (assuming Nintendo hasn't had it taken down for copyright infringement).

And if anything, slice-of-life is my preferred genre of anime now. When I was a teenager, I was into the big, epic adventures (especially sci-fi like Lost Universe, Dominion Tank Police, UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie, and Neon Genesis Evangelion), but now, I am into the slower, more personal stories (like Komi Can't Communicate, Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro!, Azumanga Daioh, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid).

@Eggman94 one of them likes to use big words such as "astonishing" and always acts holier than thou 🤣

Time to dethrone Frozen 2!

Finally seen it today with the kids, we were waiting for the initial buzz to die down so we weren't in a crowded cinema. The kids howled all the way through it despite their only knowledge of Mario is from Mario Kart, they said it was the funniest film ever. I too enjoyed it so much, so many lovely Easter eggs, such a fun and enjoyable movie

Hope it surpasses Avatar and kills Disney

@Angelic_Lapras_King Hopefully. That was the first and only Disney movie I actually did not understand what the heck was even going on in it's plot.

Absolutely well deserved. The movie is a huge breath of fresh air for kids entertainment and cinema in general. Most everything new we've watched in the past few years has been a big slog.

Incredible News! Take that you pathetic critics/haters!
Well Deserved! I highly recommend the Film to anyone, it's a Fantastic Movie!

And it deserves it! I'm honestly thinking about going to see it again - something I don't do often with movies when they're in theaters.

@Eggman94 SonOfDracula finally got banned

Well, I hope it does cross the billion by the end of Sunday, but it's not locked-in quite yet.

Also, wasn't it at 907 million by friday, rather than 970 million? That's quite a big difference there. I mean, it still reads only 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers (The Numbers specifically only has the figures covering up to and including Friday currently), and is actually still stuck at the 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.

On the 29th of April, 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie achieved this run…

@Platinum-Bucket

Well, not according to the 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers, and 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.

Now, those numbers aren't showing the Sat and Sunday figures, and I'm sure it will indeed be higher by the time the complete numbers for the weekend come in, but I'd just like to see a source that puts it even at 970 million for now (by Friday even), nevermind the billion mark.

Personally, given the current figures and how much they've dropped week over week and day over day, as well as looking at some of the best opening weekends of all time in Japan (only around 31 million in the first weekend for the highest grossing movie of all time there according to Wikipedia), I'm still struggling to be entirely confident it will indeed pass the billion mark by the end of today, but I'd be more than happy to be completely wrong on that one.

Dr. Evil voice "one billion dollars!"

Another couple of hundred to come from the Japanese market at least. It's a huge hit which hopefully gives Nintendo justification for even more movies and adaptations of other kinds.

@RetroGames Huh, that’s some cool info. I was just kinda making a reference to a certain prolific speed running related YouTube channel (Karl Jobst, if your interested), but those are indeed some rad calcs!

@Baker1000 Well, the highest grossing movie of all time in Japan made under $300 million there in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (I think not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctuations), and the highest grossing American animation of all time there, Frozen, only made around $180 million in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (also not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctations, I think), so it's going to be a pretty big ask for The Super Mario Bros. Movie to hit those kinds of levels there too, especially after the pandemic, but I have my fingers crossed.

Note: All these details can be found on a combination of Wikipedia, Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.

@Bic44 outside of paper Mario and Mario rpg, none of the Mario games have much of a plot either. I think the movie provided fans pretty much exactly what we wanted.

@FredsBodyDouble Totally agree.

I've watched the movie six times now--that came about in a kinda unusual way--and never once have I had the slightest issue with the plot.

As far as what I could have ever reasonably wanted, expected, or asked for, especially given our modern weird times and how wrong it all could have went, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 10/10 for me personally.

I wish this film all the success in the world. And now I can't wait to see whatever movie Nintendo does next.

@RetroGames it's Nintendo and Mario, they'll smash the records

@Baker1000 Yeah, I have literally zero doubt the movie will pass the billion mark, if not by the end of today then in even another day or so. After that, I can't really tell. Some people are predicting numbers as high as 1.5-1.6 billion by the end of its box office run. Given the numbers and trends I'm seeing, I think those people are being very optimistic--I'd be more than happy to be completely and utterly wrong on that--but I'm going say more around the 1.2-1.3 billion mark would be likely. And I'd certainly take that for sure. Hitting the 1 billion mark alone [in under a month] is just stunning. That's already more than both the Sonic movies combined during their entire box office runs, plus about another 300 million to spare, which is roughly another whole additional Sonic movie. It really is an amazing achievement for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Major kudos to both Illumination and Nintendo.

Looking forward to finally seeing this tonight

I think initial estimates were hoping for half that amount. I wouldn't be surprised if this movie alone makes the industry take another look at how they come to estimate box office takes. It may even evaluate the relationship between viewer and reviewer.

A billion dollars can change things in dramatic ways.

It was a pretty mid illumination movie with a bunch of references, that 55% in rottentomatoes was pretty reasonable.

I hope one day videogame movies have a little more quality, so far Sonic's and Mario's movies have been Ok. But if they make a Zelda or Metroid movie they should get a different studio.

OK, now it really is over the 1 billion mark:

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-The-(2022)#tab=summary

Yay!

@fenlix they won't. ever. So I'd put it out of mind. They built a theme park with Universal. The movie just smashed estimates and might be putting Disney on it's heels. so of course they will be forever tied to Illumination. At a minimum a decade probably much longer.

@Cashews Yeah, and the 0.001% of people who think this movie is meh alongside a handful of "professional" critics aren't going to sway Nintendo in the slightest. The vast majority of people feeding back their opinion on the film are painting a very clear picture that Nintendo and Illumination did exactly what virtually all of us wanted, hoped for, and could ever realistically have expected, especially given how terribly wrong it all could have went in our very weird times. If they put out a movie at this level every couple of years for the next decade, it would absolutely be a golden era of video game movie adaptations. I for one am all for that. Illumination + Nintendoes!

I expected nothing less. I had predicted this would be the outcome from the very start, and a well deserved output. This sets the foundation for more potential Nintendo titles coming to the silver screen, though I personally don't expect anything near this level of success for anything else other than a Super Mario movie sequel.

@FawfulsFury Pffft! HE GOT BANNED?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! SERVES YOU RIGHT, YOU SON OF A GUN! Seriously, I don't understand why he(and many others) was on a Nintendo website if he hated Nintendo so much, other than him being a troll.

seen the movie and its nowhere as good as Nintendo fans hype it up to be

@KBuckley27 Says the person who rated bowser’s inside story 4/10

I thought the film was pretty great, a solid 8/10.

The main negative for me was how bad ass peach was, doesn't reflect the games we know so well.

That image always reminds me that I want a modern Mario & Luigi rpg.
Not with weird combat mechanics. Keep it simple like the old ones.

I'm not surprised by this. Nintendo and Illumination did a great marketing campaign for this film, Mario is one of the most well-known franchises in the world, and it is just pure fun, while most other modern animated films are not.

Princess Peach has always been my favorite Nintendo character, from kindergarten to now. This movie doesn't quite nail into the "games Peach" to "badass Movie Peach" transition as well as I think it should've. Before you aim your Bullet Bills at me, I liked her Movie version! I just... well...

Personally, if I could've added one short scene to make that transition go smoother, to my taste, it'd go like this: We first meet Princess Peach not in the throne room, but in the kitchen. She's baking a cake, or other treats, maybe softly humming to herself chirpily, in a manner more aligned to the original games. Then--long story short--she has to clonk a rascal/bandit/antagonistic character on the head with a rolling pin, or even a straight-up punch, no assistance needed. And from then on, she's revealed to be far more athletic and battle-ready than how we usually know her.

A Toad: "Princess! We just got word that Bowser (blah blah)!"

Peach: [her face goes from 'cute' to 'sternly serious, ready for action'] "Call everyone for briefing, at once! I'll be there."

Something like that, if I may be selfish and entitled, heh! Because, for me, personally, the range between "original games" to "borderline out of character" is cranked up way too hard for her. I'd like to have had some form of transition.

But, hey! No matter! I still enjoy the movie, having watched it twice, and I'm definitely getting the eventual Blu-Ray. 7/10!

After this weekend, there are still at least 15 animated films that were bigger hits at the North American domestic box office (USA & Canada) adjusted for inflation (i.e. # of tickets sold). It looks like it will make the top 100 all-time next weekend, at which point it will definitely be the #16 animated film.

@RetroGames : it did $14m in Japan this weekend and has now crossed $1b mark. It has also overtaken zootopia and is in the top 9 best box office for animated movies. At current rate, no reason to see why it won’t be in the top 5 after next weekend either.

@Clammy Man, 14 million in Japan in its release weekend isn't that much. Even I was expecting more than that, and I was coming in much lower than some people I've seen. Some people are expecting this movie to reach 200 million there, but I think that's unrealistic. Maybe it will see an increase next weekend though, so who knows. I really hope so, because I would love to see Japan add a whole lot to the total.

@MontyCircus Well, it's already in the top 50 movies of all time total box office, of any kind, and it did so in only 26 days, so that's great:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

And it's already number 11 in terms of the highest grossing animated movies of all time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_animated_films

If it makes another couple of hundred million by the time it's done, which, given all the other movies in a similar situation, it realistically should, it will actually be pretty high on that top 50 of any movies list and probably top 5 of the animated movies of all time list.

Realistically, it should even crack the top 25 movies of any kind of all time with little fuss.

That's rather spectacular for the first Nintendo animated movie in modern times, and even more so that this is a movie based on a video game that's blowing the roof off.

@RetroGames : meh, just reporting the numbers. I dont care what it does, Im not making money from it

@Clammy I mean, it's already done stunningly well either way. Nothing in the video game to movie scene even comes remotely close. But, now that it's hit the billion, I just wanna see how high it can climb at this point.

@RetroGames : I think it'll be "fun" to see how well GOG does next week.. We might see 2 movies staring the Pratt at #1 & #2.

Adjusting for inflation gives a clearer, fairer look as ticket prices increase over time. Looking at the history of the # of tickets sold in the world's largest movie market is the best way to do that.

For example, you might think the recent "Avatar: The Way of Water" was the biggest movie of all-time, or thereabouts. Going by # of tickets sold in North America it was #44.

"NEW MOVIE IS SMASHING RECORDS!!! THE BIGGEST EVER!!!" looks good in press releases and clickbait headlines, but adjusting for inflation puts these movies in the proper historical context.

@MontyCircus : Yip, but still.. most of the top animated films are still in the last few years.. so inflation doesnt really matter.

But I agree.. Still, I find it MORE interesting how excited people get about sales figures.. It's almost like something doing well justifies them liking the movie/game, or something

More North Americans have seen "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in theatre than any other animated film.

1937.

The rest of the top 5 is 1961, 1994, 1940 & 1967.

@MontyCircus : Well yeah, but if you're going to be anal and say "well, more people saw this in theatres".. Well.. Streaming/dvd and tv didnt exist back then...

So that's kinda-reverse inflation isnt it?

Im sure after streaming/dvd/tv/etc - more people will have seen mario.

But it's all relative.. and as such, if you REALLY care about this stuff, then surely it only makes sense to compare against recent stuff.

Now - the next thing to argue about is "what is an animated movie anyway?" Is the lion king remake animated? Is Avatar 2? Is 99% of marvel movies?

Sure, I guess you could say more people saw "SMB" in theatres if you don't count the many films of the past that more people saw...I guess?

There are also more North Americans than in the past. Many more. So as a percentage of the population the movies of the past were even BIGGER hits than today's films.

Im sure after streaming/dvd/tv/etc - more people will have seen mario.

Plenty of people saw "Snow White", etc., on TV, on VHS, on DVD, etc. over the years as well.

But it's all relative.. and as such, if you REALLY care about this stuff, then surely it only makes sense to compare against recent stuff.

No. It's not like it's impossible for today's animated farre to compete with the biggest hits of the past. "Incredibles 2" is the 9th biggest hit animated film ever at the North American box office adjusted for inflation (# of tickets sold), and it came out 5 years ago. That's a good benchmark for "SMB" to aim for.

Now - the next thing to argue about is "what is an animated movie anyway?" Is the lion king remake animated? Is Avatar 2? Is 99% of marvel movies?

Lion King remake (#12 animated North America all-time adjusted for inflation, i.e. # of tickets sold) is 100% animation. No one considers the other 2 as animated films.

@MontyCircus If that's what actually counted for most normal people, that's what the chart would read. Clearly, most people don't give a shat about looking at it like that; they just want to see a list that shows how high the movies rank next to each other. And going by that list, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has hit the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Trust me, that's the one Nintendo, Universal and even the likes of Disney are going to be analysing most, not how much it made relative to Snow White when it released like a bazillion years ago in completely different circumstances. Disney doesn't care that Mario is going to topple a bunch of its bazillion year old films, but rather than it's toppling a whole bunch of its movies from the last decade or so and even this year at the box office. And that's the one all the media is going to report on too, and indeed already is. I think we need to get more in line with Joe public when discussing these figures in here rather than nerdy data analysts looking at trends around inflation and how ticket prices have changed in various ways over the last bazillion years or whether people are going to see it in 2D, 3D, IMAX, 4DX, etc when most of those weren't even options in the past and such.

Now that it's officially crossed the $1 billion mark, this now puts the movie on the list for one of the most successful films of all time. It currently ranks #48 in the Top 50 highest-grossing films, which may not seem like a lot; but given how many films have come out since the dawn of cinema, that is significant.

The wildfire success of this movie, a sharp contrast with its 1993 predecessor, most definitely means that we will be getting more Nintendo movies in the future. I am certainly looking forward to Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, and Super Smash Bros.

I even have an idea for a Punch-Out!! movie, and Sylvester Stallone would cameo as his iconic character Rocky Balboa, who would be the fight commentator in the match between Little Mac and Mr. Dream (who would be played by Mike Tyson, as a nod to the original version of the NES game).

The cgi lion king remake is kind of an outlier on the top of the animated movies list. Just feels out of place on that list but I can see why it’s there at the same time.

How many million more does Mario have in it? I reckon it will pass Toy Story 4.

Yeah, I was discussing this with my wife yesterday, and although both The Lion King "live action" remake and Avatar: The Way of Water are technically done using almost entirely 3D cgi, I don't think most people would look at them and think they are animated movies. And I think that's the simple reason they're often not viewed/considered in the same category. As a trained animator with an honours degree in animation and electronic media who studied exactly this kind of animation back in the day using Silicon Graphics machines and the like, I agree that it might be less confusing to think of it as something slightly off on a tangent to typical "animation", maybe a new category of its own. I mean, I think this is literally why Disney itself called the new The Lion King "live action" rather than animation, and why Cameron isn't going around calling The Way of Water animation either. I think we can all use some kind of reasoning here to view them through a lense that makes some relative sense. So, The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn't gonna beat those "animated" movies, but it's gonna get pretty dang high on that top animated movies of all time list (which The Lion King "live action" remake is actually on, at least if you look at the one on Wikipedia anyway). Either way, it's doing gangbusters--made more money in 26 days than both Sonic movies made in their entire box office lifetimes combined, and in fact, so much better that it's made enough on top of that to also cover what the third Sonic movie will likely roughly make too. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bonafide HIT.

@PinderSchloss Then stop looking at and reading stuff about it, and stop coming into articles and comments sections that are specifically about it.

Seriously, what the hell is up with people today.

According to Wikipedia, it entered the Top 50 highest grossing movies ever already. Currently sitting at 48, and will easily move up into the Top 20. That’s quite remarkable.

Has to be noted that this (frequently published) list doesn’t account for inflation, though.

@Angelic_Lapras_King I wish. I think the Frozen movies, and Incredibles 2, are maybe a little out of its reach. I’ve absolutely zero love for Frozen, so that does pain me slightly.

It maybe has a small chance of taking down ‘Minions’ to become the #4 animated movie ever, and Illumination’s biggest success.

Reminder that Nintendolife had one of the worst reviews for the Mario movie. Being a Nintendo fan site that is pretty unacceptable.

@PinderSchloss For being the driving force behind Nintendo, in and of himself, I can think of other characters I like better….DK, Yoshi… I race more as Bowser….that said, he’s an icon of my childhood, so I can’t turn my back on him….

@Switch_Pro Yeah, I was honestly very disappointed that the Nintendo Life reviewer couldn't see past some misguided ideas about what is or is not required in a movie like this to actually review it properly for what it is and what it achieved.

In terms of video game movies (and just kids, family, and fan animations in general to be honest), this is about as good as we've ever gotten when every single element that makes such a movie is taken into account, and the reviewer absolutely missed the mark. He made the same snobby/elitist mistake that a whole bunch of other "professional" critics did, imo, which is confusing a simple plot with a bad story, and indeed thinking that is more important that every single other element that constitutes a movie. Thankfully, the general audience enjoys movies by literally just watching them and then deciding how good they are overall by how happy and satisfied they are when they walk out of the cinema, and, clearly, most of them absolutely loved this movie. And I'm in the same boat as them.

This movie isn't perfect, and it isn't going to win an Oscar for its story or character development or whatever, but, for what it is, what it was trying to be, who it's aimed it, and for avoiding going completely and utter terribly wrong as could have been so easy to do in out totally weird modern times, it's a 10/10 for me personally. Objectively, the art and animation is absolutely stunning and right up there with the best we've seen from animated cgi visuals, the audio is brilliant across the board from the brilliant music to the excellent voice acting, the action and set-pieces are top-notch spectacles and very entertaining and exciting, the plot is simple but reflects a perfectly coherent version of the hero's journey the carries you through the movie beats in a way that any normal person can easily follow, the fan service is totally through the roof, and the movie is just joyful, reverent, upbeat, and leaves you grinning from ear to ear when you exit the cinema. To ask or expect much more than that is just absurd imo.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie absolutely delivered.

in my opinion it was pretty boring & a movie I don’t really care to ever see again

It's almost unreal!

@RetroGames Well maybe because I used to love Mario too, and I saw him get this nightmare of a movie. It’s earning a billion and still people don’t question Nintendo’s decision to raise the price of TotK. They’re turning into a monster in front of our eyes and it’s all with thundering applause.

@PinderSchloss If you actually think this is a "nightmare of a movie", you're so far out of touch that it's basically laughable.

And Nintendo has been a dominant force in gaming for decades, so this isn't some revelation. You should see what it was like in NES/SNES era when it was basically controlling the market with an iron fist, yet still producing some of its best content of all time.

If Nintendo keeps producing some of its best content of all time--I'm good.

@arabiansanchez It'll ultimately come down to the countries its yet to or just recently came out in. I can see it getting a big boost in Japan.

@PinderSchloss What does the price hike of TotK have anything to do with the Mario movie? You gotta untangle things in your brain a little bit.

@RetroGames Yup, ultimately that's what it comes down to. If they keep producing great content, people will buy it. Nowadays with microtransactions and additional payments being the norm for big games, Nintendo is surprisingly reserved, still offering us a complete experience out of the box. In fact they have widened the gap with competition even more in this regard, due to completors' fixation on graphics which inflates development time and budgets to an unsustainable degree.

For video game and console sales numbers, would you rather we compare them historically in dollar sales too?

It makes much more sense to compare them in unit sales, yes? Same thing with theatre box office. # of tickets sold is the fairest method of comparison. Of course companies want to announce the biggest numbers they can, whether or not that skews reality, just as long as everyone gets the impression that their new movie is "THE BIGGEST EVER!!!"

@MontyCircus The comparisons are what they are: Games typically get compared on unit sales, and movies at the box office typically get compared on box office gross (certainly now anyway). It's not you who gets to decide that or try to pretend it's otherwise, nor I. So, by the metrics most people are using now and have been for some time, it's completely legit to say The Super Mario Bros. is one of the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Also, it has a production budget of 100 million dollars and a gross of over 1 billion to date, which is ten times the amount and a stunning achievement. And, even accounting for say a 100 million marketing budget too (sources say it was closer to 40 million though), it's already made over five times its costs thus far. So, however anyone wants to look at it, it's a bonafide success. It's also made [in four weeks] more than twice the amount any other video game movie has ever made in their box office lifetimes, and enough to add both Sonic movies' box office lifetimes together and still have enough left over to possibly cover what the third Sonic movie is going to take in its box office lifetime too--and it's still not done at the box office yet. It's a truly stunning achievement, and that's just a fact. And try as you might, you can't take that away or diminish it.

@Diogmites Yeah, all the trolls are coming out of the woodwork now. I wonder how many of them are bitter Sega/Sonic/Genesis/whatever fans who are upset because Nintendoes. You certainly don't have a clue about what makes a good movie of this type, that's for sure.

Saw the movie today with my family. People saying they smiled the whole movie through, were not really exaggerating. When entertainment makes me smile that hard, I know it must be Nintendo quality. So many great action scenes and so much warmth. I loved Mario, Luigi, Donkey and Peach. The firy character really suits Peach and I think she is incredibly cute too. Definitely need to read the old comics where she acts similarly.
The german voice over is really good. Just thinking about all the Nintendo movies coming out in the next years gives me a warm feeling.

Everyone who participated in the making of the movie should be proud of themselves.

@Diogmites Suuure, on all those points.

"SMB" is tracking closely with "Incredibles 2", which adjusting for inflation (i.e. # of tickets sold), is the #52 biggest film and #9 biggest animated film of all-time at the North American box office.

I'm not trying to "diminish" SMB's success, just to put it in a proper historical context. Becoming a top ten animated film of all-time by # of tickets sold would be quite the achievement.

@MontyCircus The situation and indeed the entire world is completely different now to what it was like in the days of Gone with the Wind, especially everything around movies and how we consume them and the like, so it's somewhat absurd to try to measure the success of modern movies relative to that*. It makes more sense to measure them relative to modern times, and even then things have changed dramatically in the last few years because of Covid and digital streaming and the war between Russia and the Ukraine and so on.

In today's context, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is doing gangbusters by basically any measure. I think that's all 99.9% of normal people are interested to know about, especially in a gaming site like this. In fact, I'd bet 99.999% of them probably don't even know what Gone with the Wind is. So I think all you're ultimately doing is just muddying the waters for no good reason by bringing up stuff like that and trying to bring endless inflation into the equation and so on.

The cost of gas and electric has gone up about 100% in the last year or so in the UK, along with food prices seeing the largest increase in over 45 years too, which is so far beyond normal inflation it's like something out of dystopian sci-fi movie or what you might see in war times, so should we account for that and compare it to those old movies when considering that people still spent over 56 million going out to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the theatres in the last four weeks in the UK alone--it's a rhetorical question.

*For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1fm77j/the_problem_with_gone_with_the_wind_being_the/

Sure, there's a lot of factors, world events, etc. that go into how many people see a film in theatres. There was a World War a while ago. There are a lot more North Americans now than in the past as well. We could factor in what % of the population saw a film and the old films would be even bigger hits than the newer ones, for example.

But it seems what you're really saying is that you don't want to compare "SMB" with movies, or animated movies of the past, solely because a lot of those movies of the past sold more tickets.

@PinderSchloss
Ahem...
Could you please stop talking trash about Mario movie ?
I watched the movie four times and still like it.
It was pretty great movie in my opinion.
Take a note, I'm not a huge fan of Mario franchise despite I still have interest to play with some of Mario games but I still enjoyed the movie. I pretty much get interested with every character personality in the movie version compared with video games version that I didn't find any interesting personality.
If you couldn't accept the fact the movie was selling great, stop talking trash on every articles about Mario movie. And please don't bring the $70 price issue from Nintendo to this Mario movie article. It has nothing to do with price tag of Nintendo games.

@MontyCircus
Mario movie was selling great and I watched the movie for four times.
Don't think too much about the comparison of the selling ticket numbers from the past and this era.

Indeed, box office does not influence my movie-going decisions. I'll see an acclaimed tiny indie film as soon as an acclaimed blockbuster. Same with video games. But the all-time charts always fascinate me. You could say Tetris is our Gone with the Wind.

@Anti-Matter I’ll stop talking trash about the Mario movie when they stop posting and reposting 10000 articles about it every day. Again: what use is a comment section if we can only give our positive opinions?

@PinderSchloss,

Surely all those ticket sales, and the 96% audience score would suggest your own opinions are in the minority, but at least the out of touch movie critics agree with you.

It's hard to say but the past 4 weeks for the movie has been incredible and I am so glad it has joined the billion-dollar club alongside Top Gun: Maverick and a few others and the first video game adaptation to do so.

Nintendo and Illumination have truly smashed the box office and put a smile on millions of people's faces. Mario is truly Number 1.

@MontyCircus One of the things I'm saying is that using the ticket sales metric to compare the relative success of films seperated by multiple decades doesn't make sense given how radically different the circumstances of the times were/are.

And I'll just post this again too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1fm77j/the_problem_with_gone_with_the_wind_being_the/

@FirstEmperor No that would be the Mario OVA, the great mission to rescue princess peach. back in 1986, it like Animal Crossing also didn't release outside of Japan.

@PipeGuy64Bit It was awful, yeah. The game based on the movie was terrible too, with NPCs constantly telling you where to go and what to do whenever you wandered off for a bit to explore. Couldn't find a way to turn it off either.